1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to image forming and office automation devices and more particularly to a consumable for use in these devices which includes a memory for storing information about installation and exhaustion dates and consumable consumption and for updating programming within the devices.
2. Background Art
Most image forming devices, such as facsimile machines, printers and copiers, utilize any number of consumables, e.g. toner, ink, ribbon, photoconductor, developer, etc., which need to be replaced at the end of their lives. The service life for a consumable is generally designed by the manufacturer and is monitored by the print engine in which it operates. Optimally, near the end of the consumable's life, the print engine displays a message to the user on the front panel of the device or on a host device, such as a personal computer, concerning the status of the consumable.
Because of the way in which the consumables are marketed, it is very difficult for the manufacturer to gather information directly from the operators of the consumable products concerning consumable consumption rates and use. More often than not, the consumable products are retailed through large distributors and returned directly to the manufacturer or re-manufacturer for recycling upon exhaustion without a return address. The result has been that manufacturers have had to gather information about product usage indirectly. For example, trying to track manufacturing dates and lot numbers to gather general usage information. However, this method is only suitable for identifying general trends since it is very difficult, if not impossible, to guess installation and exhaustion dates due to varying shelf times and the wide geographic region of product distribution.
As a consequence, manufacturers have attempted to get information directly from the consumer by including product survey cards with the new consumable products. Unfortunately, the participation rates for these kinds of surveys are quite low in comparison to the total number of products sold. Historically, participation rates have been as low as 2%. It is very easy for the consumer to discard the survey card when the new consumable is installed.
Examples of the types of consumable devices in a laser printer are: the toner cartridge(s); the photoconductor, typically a drum or belt; developer assemblies; the silicon pads on the fuser rollers; fuser assemblies; cleaning rollers; oiling rollers; transfer assemblies and even transfer belts and gear trains. Other consumables for other devices include such things as ribbons, ink cartridges; ink bladders; and ink print heads.
Additionally, it is oftentimes desirable to provide updates to the programming of office automation and image forming devices to provide additional features, adjust operating parameters and fix software bugs. For instance, in one color laser printer currently on the market there are at least four separate microcomputers within the device. There is one microcomputer in the user display to gather data from the user and present visual display of important data to the user, there is a microcomputer in the print engine to control the xerographic image development process, there is a microcomputer which takes a desired printed page and rasterizes the image for transfer to the laser imaging device within the print engine, and finally there is another microcomputer to control access to and data interchange with a local area network or LAN. Likewise, with other image forming devices and office automation devices it may prove necessary to update the computer software/firmware for any of the microcomputers that reside within the office automation equipment. Currently, however, this is both difficult and expensive to accomplish since it is necessary to physically change out the memory device, typically a ROM (read only memory) of some sort. Most often, this must be accomplished by a service technician or an expensive factory recall. Presently, the communication between a host device and a printer is primarily "one way" in the sense that most of the information is sent from the host to the printer to be printed. A very limited amount of information, specifically a paper supply tray status bit and a toner cartridge low status bit, is sent from the printer to the host device.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide more direct communication with the manufacturers of the consumable components regarding the consumption rates, installation and exhaustion dates and other key information. Additionally, it would be advantageous to be able to provide software patches and updates to the office automation and image forming devices. Also, it would be advantageous to provide a robust two way communications link between a host device and image forming and office automation devices.